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The Study of Myth: Two ApproachesAuthor(s): Robert LuysterSource: Journal of Bible and Religion, Vol. 34, No. 3 (Jul., 1966), pp. 235-243Published by: Oxford University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1460663

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The Study of Myth: Two ApproachesROBERT LUYSTERHEREhave been a number f differentways to approachhe under-standing and significance of myth, but for the modern student thechoice of method is confinedprincipallyto that employed by two dif-ferent and- at least on this issue- opposing disciplines:phenomenologyand

anthropology. I should like to analyze each of these approaches,the pointsat which they contrast, and then to put forward an evaluation of each. Forpurposes of this presentation, I have selected as representativeof modernphenomenologythe man who is probablyits outstandingspokesman:MirceaEliade. 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 basedupon symbols. His accountof the symbolic mentality underscores its differences from the mentality ofthe modem West. For the symbolic imagination,observes Eliade, "natureisnever 'natural.'What looks like a naturalsituationor process to the empiricaland rationalmind, is a kratophanyor hierophanyin magic or religious experi-ence." The phenomenaof nature are freely transformedby the psyche in'"anautonomousact of creation"into symbols of the power andholiness theyreveal to the beholder.The death and revivificationof the gods of vegetation,such as Attis and Tammuz, are by no means immediately apparentin themerely empirical disappearingand reappearingof the vegetation itself. Thereligious significanceof the event is revealed only in its associated symbolsand myths, for it is only in these that the mind apprehendswhat it has seenandattemptsto express its meaning.Symbolic thought,then, is an independentmode of cognition, with its own structure, logic, and validity. It is throughthe symbol that the archaicmentality comes to formulateand understand tsworld, since the symbol discloses the structure of that world. The symbolsuccessfully brings to expression, furthermore, those aspects of reality towhich the conceptualizing consciousness has been the most insensible andwhich it has been most unableto articulate. It is in fact justthese contradictory

ROBERT LUYSTER (B.A., DartmouthCollege; M.A., Ph.D., University of Chi-cago) is AssistantProfessorof PhilosophyandReligionat the Universityof Connecticut,Storrs. His article, "SymbolicElements n the Cult of Athena,"appearedn the Summer.1965numberof Historyof Religions.1Mircea Eliade,Patternsn Comparativeeligion, rans.RosemarySheed,New York:Sheedand Ward, 1958,p. 425.

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and mysterious features of the universe for which the very ambivalence (or,more properly, multivalence) of a symbol is most highly suited. A symbolis an image chargedwith many meanings simultaneously.And it is this veryindeterminacy whatever the logical or scientific disadvantagesit may pos-sess - that renders it uniquely able to preserve the richness and the paradoxof experiencedreality.2It is by means of myth that the symbolic consciousness expresses mostcompletely its understandingof the cosmos. Myth describes the activities ofthe gods at the beginningof time. Eliade lays special stress upon the fact that"the main function of myth is to determine the exemplarmodels of all ritual,and of all significant human acts."3 That is to say, the importance of theevents related in myth is that they form a model or paradigmfor all humanundertakingsthereafter. Every ritual and every importanthumanaction gaintheir effectiveness by repeating a mythical archetype, and thus share in thepotency and the sacredness that still inhere in that primevalhappening. Forthe history narrated in myth is not historical in our sense of the word - aseries of unique, unrepeatableevents - but is instead "eternal"history, thatwhich takes place in eternity and can accordingly be indefinitely repeatedand reactualized.Furthermore,the man who imitates a mythological model,whether in ritual or a private undertaking,is enabled thereby to transcendand abolish profane time and enter again mythical, eternal time. Thus, forinstance, the culminatingevents in the life of Christ are not simply recalledduring the church services of Holy Week; they are presented rather as infact happeningagain, then, at the moment of their celebration.For the prim-itive mind profane, everyday time is not only devoid of any particular nterestor significance;it is also inchoate, unrealized,potentiallydangerous.Primitiveman believes that he must hold fast to the way of doing things that was insti-tuted mythically by the gods, for just these divinely appointedactions havebeen responsible for the creation of his world. In myth he discovers whatreallyhappenedo constitute his world as he finds it; in myth he findsrevealedwhat reality s and therefore what he must do and be if he too is to belong tothe level of reality upon which the gods live.4Eliade's views upon the cognitive validity of symbolic thoughtculminatein his assertion that "the symbol, the myth, the rite, express, on differentplanes and throughthe means properto them, a complex system of coherentaffirmationsaboutthe ultimatereality of things, a system that can be regardedas constituting a metaphysics."5It will be seen that this position is exactly

2 Mircea Eliade, Imagesand Symbols, rans. Philip Mairet, New York: Sheed andWard, 1961,pp. 9-25, "MethodologicalRemarkson the Studyof ReligiousSymbolism,"TheHistoryof Religions:EssaysnMethodology,d. M. EliadeandJ. M. Kitagawa,Chicago:Univ. of ChicagoPress, 1959,pp. 97-103.3Eliade,Patternsn Comparativeeligion,p. 410.4Ibid.,pp. 388-434.5Mircea Eliade,Cosmos nd History:The Myth of theEternalReturn,trans. W. R.Trask, New York: Harper& Brothers,1954,p. 3; see especiallypp. 1-49.


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THE STUDY OF MYTH: TWO APPROACHES 237opposite to the typical nineteenth-centuryview that a myth is somethingop-posed to reality, an eminently false literary creation. For Eliade,it is preciselyin the myth that reality for the primitive is disclosed; in other words, "allmythology is ontophany."' Since on this level of thought the real is equatedwith the sacred, it is especially in sacredhistory or myth that the various lev-els and modalities of reality gain expression. Naturally, this metaphysics isnot expressed in abstract terms; we do not find such words as "being" and"non-being."Nevertheless, when we begin to understandthe inner meaningof myth, we see that it consistently embodies some definite understandingofreality and therefore implies a correspondingmetaphysicalposition. Further-more, in giving articulation to a certain structureof reality, the myth simul-taneously discloses the existential situationof the man who perceives it thus;in graspingthe constitution of the universe, he at the same time apprehendshis 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 butof the real characterof humandestiny, since man strives always to imitatethe real as he understands t.'Eliade'scontentionsconcerningthe ontological andexistential implicationsof the mythological world-view of archaicman are confirmedin some detailin the same investigator's extensive phenomenological analyses of ancientsymbols and myths. The function of this attempt to recover the meaning ofarchaicthought 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 isdistinctly different from our own, though not less valid. Moreover, in viewof the present world situation, in which the modern West has entered upona decisive encounter with primitive and oriental types of cognition, it is ofthe utmost importancethat such an effort of understandingbe enlarged anddeepened. If the West neglects such a dialogue, its own philosophicand spir-itual resources are doomedto provincialismand sterility. If, on the otherhand,the West consents to understandand come to terms with the thought formsembodiedin exotic mythologies, the result will inevitablybe a deeper under-standingof man and the formation of what Eliadedescribesas a "new human-ism."' Eliade himself seeks to facilitate such a confrontation in depth bymeans of a "test-encounter,"in which he subjects the anxiety before Deathand Nothingness regnant in the modern West to a critique based upon thethought forms of traditionalIndia.10We may note, finally, that as would beexpected, Eliade is strongly critical of positivists, such as Tylor and Frazer,who regard myth largely as mere superstitionand who fail to realize that it

6 Mircea Eliade, Myths, Dreamsand Mysteries, trans. Philip Mairet, New York: Harper& Brothers,1960,p. 16.7 Ibid., pp. 7-27.8 Eliade, Imagesand Symbols, p. 35.9MirceaEliade,"History of Religionsanda New Humanism,"Historyof Religions,I, 1 (Summer,1961), 1-8.10 Eliade, Myths, Dreams and Mysteries, pp. 231 ff.


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238 ROBERTLUYSTERforms"ametaphysic that s, a wholeandcoherentconceptionf Reality,not a seriesof instinctiveesturesuledby the same undamentalreactionof the humananimaln confrontation ith Nature.' "

ANTHROPOLOGY:THE PLURALISTSFirst of all it must be borne in mind that ethnic phenomena which we compare are seldomreally alike. The fact that we designate certain tales as myths . . . does not prove that thesephenomena, wherever they occur, have the same history or spring from the same mentalactivities. On the contrary, it is quite obvious that the selection of the material assembledfor 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 thatthese phenomena are the same, their comparability has to be proved by other means. Thishas never been done. The phenomena themselves contain no indication whatever that wouldcompel 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. Thusmyths 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 entirelyunjustifiable.12

The writer is the great pioneer of American anthropology, Franz Boas,but the radicalempiricismhe here expresses has also been transmittedby himto modern American anthropology as a whole. In many respects Boas repre-sents the translationnto socialtermsof beliefsconcerning istoricalprocessand study which we characteristicallyssociatewith Germanhistoricism,butthisrelationshipannot edevelopedere.Bothhave n commonome-thinghathasbeendeterminativeor he ormationfanthropologicalesearchintheUnitedStates: stressupon heabsoluteinviolabilityf theindividualphenomenonnda consequent nwillingnesso subordinatet to any moregeneralystemof interpretation.npractice,hishasmade or,ontheonehand,anamassingf immensemountsf datauponanygiven ubject, ut,on theotherhand,a denialhatanycommontructuresouldbeperceivedto inform hesedata, hatanycomparisonsould hereforelegitimatelyemadebetweenthem, and, finally,that scarcelyany generalizationsf anykindcouldbegenuinely ppliedo them.Inidentifyingheschool hatadheresto theseprincipless"pluralistic,"e meano callattentiono its emphasisupon hedis-unity f its materialsndmethodsf explanation.We begin o seetheimplicationsf thisgeneral ositionorthesubjectathandbyobservingirst hecharacteristicenialbyAmericananthropologythatonemayspeak t allof "archaic"r"primitive"an,orof a "mythic"mentality.Suchattestation s based,afterall, uponthe premise hatthe uni-formities mongprimitiveeoples utweighifferences;nd t is preciselyassumptions f this kind that the pluralistsare concerned o combat.Butwhat, then, of the seeming similarities of belief and practice found among

" Eliade, Imagesand Symbols, p. 176.12 Franz Boas, "The Origin of Totemism," AmericanAnthropologist,XVIII (1916), 320.


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THE STUDY OF MYTH: TWO APPROACHES 239manyprimitivepeoples?There are two principal nswers.The first is thedenial that apparentsimilarities are genuinesimilarities. Culture is a dynamic,ever-changing phenomenon,and no element within it is sparedfrom the proc-esses that affect the whole. The truth is that seeming resemblancesbetweentwo different cultures bear substantiallydifferent meanings within the cul-tures in which they appear.Second, suchapparentparallelsare simply explain-able as the result of their diffusion due to the historical contacts betweencertain peoples ratherthan as an independentevolution among unrelatedpeo-ples due to the fundamentalsimilarity of human nature everywhere."3The specific result of these views for the subjectof myth is a pronouncedrejection by all members of this "school" of any monistic interpretationofeither the natureor the origin of myth. Here is an illustrationfrom the leadingspokesman of this school, Stith Thompson, commenting on the significanceof myth:The origin of myths and folktales over the world must be extremely diverse, so that it isnot safe to posit any single origin even for those of a particular people. Such is the generalattitude to which this purely empirical approach has led me. To many this will seem onlya negative reaction for I have no answer to make to those who claim to know exactly wheremyths come from....

The problem, however, is surely not "where do myths come from?" but rather "wheredoes each individual myth come from?" Every myth has its own history.... Even theadherents of some of the monistic schools recognize the vast amount of give and take therehas always been in the behavior of myths and folktales. But while they give lip service todissemination, 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 searchfor the origin of that story. For both quests adequate data are missing. We are left with achoice of making a guess according to our own predilections or of saying that we do notknow. It is by all means preferable to say that we do not know.'4In keeping with this position, Thompson has been very influential in fos-tering detailed studies of "each individual myth" in terms of its peculiarmotifs. Innumerable olk stories have been collected by workers in the field,analyzed into these individualmotifs, and edited by Thompson.15A similar approach is defended in the methodological introductionto arecent collection of Dahomean myths by Melville and Frances Herskovits,DahomeanNarrative: A Cross-CulturalAnalysis.Here, too, a protest is lodgedagainst the monistic or "all-or-nonefallacy." The authorsattempt to subjecta particularmonistic hypothesis, that of Freud, to the test of their field data,

13 Cf. two seminal essays of Franz Boas: "The Methods of Ethnology," AmericanAnthropologist, 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.


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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 ascausationis concerned, a pluralistic theory of myth." The variousexclusivisttheories concerning the origin and significance of myth have some limitedvalidity, but none can by any means be accepted as solely true. The onlyproper way to approach myth is historical or cross-cultural: the errors ofthe monistic position have arisen principallybecause the proponentshave de-veloped their theories on the basis of knowledge of but a single culture, andhave not subjectedthem to necessary checks throughdata affordedby othercultures."

CONCLUSIONThe contrast between these two methods of studying myth is pointed upby the rather severe treatment administeredto some of Eliade'sworks at thehands of American anthropologists. Reviewing his Birth and Rebirth, onecritic registers her astonishment that with Eliade "non-modern and non-Western culturesseem to be lumpedinto an entity called, variously, 'archaic,''primitive,'or 'traditional,'" andchideshim for his "anthropologicalnaivete."She goes on to claim that an additionaldifficultyis "Eliade'sapparentassump-tion of social evolution. Although in one of his summary statements he re-marks that one cannot really sketch an evolutionary developmentwhen one

pattern of initiation rites gives place to another, the book as a whole doesseem to reflect this attitude.""17nother anthropologist, commenting uponThe Sacred nd theProfane,has the same complaint:"Eliade has written what,for the anthropologist,must seem like a strangebook .... He has made whatappearsto be an insightful synthesis of complex and varied phenomena,yetbeneath a facade of skillful writing and brilliant speculationone cannot helpfeeling that it is somethingof an anachronism.While claimingto be an intro-ductionto the history of religion, there is no history in this work, except somedubiousassumptionsregardingthe sequencesthroughwhich man and religionhave passed .... It should be read almost as a literary effort rather than awork of science or history."'s Commentingon Patternsn Comparativeeligion,the same critic categorizes Eliade'sgeneralapproachas "Frazerian."I'

1x Melville Herskovits and Frances S. Herskovits, DahomeanNarrative: A Cross-CulturalAnalysis, 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, "TheEclipse of Solar Mythology," Journalof American Folklore,LXVIII (1955), 393-416, andof the psychoanalytic approach to myth, again by Dorson, "Theories of Myth and theFolklorist," 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 Sacredand the Profane by Mircea Eliade, AmericanAnthropologist,LXI (1959), 1147.19 Wm. A. Lessa, review of Patterns n ComparativeReligion by Mircea Eliade, AmericanAnthropologist,LXI (1959), 122.


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THE STUDY OF MYTH: TWO APPROACHES 241Now all of this, it seems to me, reflects a ratherastonishinglack of com-

prehension among these anthropologists concerning what Eliade and otherphenomenologistsof religion are in fact attemptingto do. While Eliadeindeedhas certain beliefs "regardingthe sequences through which man and religionhave passed," he is by no means a Frazerianor evolutionist. This should beobvious to any unbiasedreader. How is it possible, for instance, for any re-sponsible critic to ignore the following words of Eliade? "There is alwaysthe risk of falling back into the errors of the nineteenth century and, partic-ularly, of believing with Tylor or Frazerthat the reaction of the humanmindto naturalphenomenais uniform. But the progress accomplishedin culturalethnology and in the history of religions has shown that this is not alwaystrue, that man's reactions to nature are often conditionedby his culture andhence, finally, by history."20What really lies behind this misunderstandingand, in a more generalsense, the whole anthropological antagonism to Eliade is the long-standingcrusade of Boas-oriented American anthropologists against generalizationand synthesis, their obsession with evolutionism as the chief offender in thisregard,and their continuedadherenceto the simplisticdoctrinethat "diffusionnegates 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 thenature and structure of given phenomena.To do this, the phenomenologistmust necessarily abstract common features from their particularhistoricalmanifestations and compose from these features the structures which theyeverywhere - and yet nowhere completely - disclose. It is precisely thisprocess of abstraction and synthesis to which American anthropology haslong 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 anthropologiststhemselves a growing recognitionis evi-dent of the need for generalization and systematization, accompaniedby acorrespondingawareness of the limitations in particularizingstudies of spe-cific historical phenomena.22 The reasons for this trend have been primarilymethodological, but importantphilosophicalimplications of the problem arealso present. Specifically, the permissability of generalizationsdependsuponwhether or not there truly exist certaingeneral 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: Particularismversus Generalization," AmericanAnthropologist,LIX (1957), 318-24.


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242 ROBERTUYSTERvalidity upon the genuine existence of man as a generically identifiablephe-nomenon, the real question is about man himself. Many anthropologistshaveattempted to dissolve the oneness of humannature into history and its bor-rowings, contacts, and conditions; a priori, the widespread presence of anycultural ondition r complex f conditionss neverallowedas evidencetoward a deeper understandingof human natureitself, since the resemblancescanalwaysbedismissedsmerelyanothernstance f diffusion.n a largersense, then, diffusion has been resorted to to question not only theories ofman'sevolution, but also theories aboutmanhimself.Second,Eliade asnotonlyanticipatedutalsoattemptedo answerhecharges gainst im.Manyyearsagohepicturednimaginaryriticasking,"Whatdoyoumeanbythese erms?Whatsymbolsre nquestion? mongwhichpeoples nd nwhatcultures? ndhemight dd:Youarenotunawarethat heepochof Tylor,of MannhardtndFrazers overanddonewith; tis nolonger llowabletoday o speak f mythsandrites ingeneral,'r of auniformitynprimitiveman's eactionso Nature.Thesegeneralizationsreabstractions,ikethoseof 'primitive an' ngeneral.What s concretes thereligious henomenonanifestedn historyandthrough istory."Eliade'srejoindero thiskindof attackappearso centeraroundwo points.Thefirst s that"beforemakinghehistoryf anything,ne musthavea properunderstandingfwhat t is,inandor tself." uch nunderstanding,owever,canonlybearrivedtsynthetically,ymeansf abstractionrom heconcrete.Itsmethods inevitablyomparative,eekingo discoveresemblancesamongrelatedreligioustructures.he second onsiderations that"all hesecon-ditioningactorstogether o not,of themselves,ddup to the life of thespirit."23t is especiallynmattersf religionndtsvocabularyfmythandsymbol hatmantranscendsis historicalconditioning,nd t is thereforeespeciallynthis area hata narrowlyistoricalapproachs inappropriate.Eachof theunderstandingsf mythwe haveconsideredasits peculiarproblemsnddangers.ormost tudentsfmyth heanthropological-pluralistapproach ust eemexcessivelyegative. heseanthropologistseclarehatso impossibles it to discoverhemeaningf myth,we should otevenat-tempto guessatthe matter. ut hisscarcelyeemssatisfactory.nemightclaimwithequal ustificationhat t is impossibleo discoverhefinalmeaningof Hamlet,r Germanomanticism,r the riseof capitalism,r theconsti-tution f anatom.Theimpossibilityf final olutionsannot eused odenythe tentativeolutionshat aredisclosinghemselvesmoreandmoresatis-factorily.t is essentialo rememberhat f thosewho aremostqualifiedoproposeuchpartialolutionsefrainromdoing o,those essqualified illbe emboldenedo enter he discussion.heuniversalitynd heimportanceof mythntheformationfhumanulturemake venapartial nderstandingof its meaning and structurepreferable to no understandingat all, and it is

23 Eliade, Imagesand Symbols, pp. 30, 29, 32.


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THE STUDY OF MYTH: TWO APPROACHES 243

only through a systematic and comparative approach, a phenomenologicalapproach,that such understandingcan be gained.But if phenomenologistsof religion are to be commended for their morepositive and constructive attitude, the question may be raised of whethertheir appreciationof myth may be excessive. Thus, Eliade may come dan-gerously close to a kind of mystique of the myth in his claim that the graspof reality disclosed in mythology is in more than one respect superiorto theconceptual grasp. Not only does he hold that mythology is able to articulatecertain ideas not attainableby rationalizingmetaphysics; he even asserts thatmythology contains certain truths that conventional philosophy does notgrasp. Presumably,Eliade not only knows what myth means, he knows thatwhat myth means is true. For many critics, at least, such claims demand fargreater substantiationthan Eliade has thus far offered. If the skepticism ofthe anthropologiststo 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 judgmentsof this kind.We may conclude that the two approachesto myth need each other.Ideally, one might hope that they could be integrated, that the sobriety andcaution of the first could chastenthe somewhatunscientific zeal of the second,while the forwardness of the second could counteract the timidness of thefirst. A more sober outlook may recognize that the extremes of timidity andboldness will continue to divide scholars and the forms of scholarship.Norcan we maintain that either way of attemptingto understandmyth is intrin-sically more valid or valuable than the other. Both ways are necessary andboth are beset by the faults of their virtues. The student of religion mustlearn to employ and understandboth. He may hope, finally, that the practi-tioners of each will come increasingly to understand and appreciate oneanother.

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