Folklore, which includes myths, folktales, fairytales, and legends, was never an explanation for things science now understands. Instead, it operates as a kind of collective psychology, showing us the underside of our social life. Folkloric motifs return to life all the time, inside us as well as outside, as our collective depths try to talk to us about what we need to learn, take into account, stop doing, or adapt to. Jung and other reflective people have given plentiful examples of this in action.
I call my own depth-interpretive approach to these mythic dynamics “applied” because I’m interested in why they matter. If we understood folklore better, technologists might have heeded centuries of warnings about the danger of creating autonomous beings who, in old stories and new, always get out of control. Knowing the story of the fall of the Titans into the deepest abyss might have said something to those who built both the Titanic and the Titan, both sunk. Those who do appreciate the strength of folklore are able to wonder alongside Joseph Campbell about whether Earthrise (a globe half in shadow) represents a new mythic image for our time.
Jung also spoke of a personal myth. In a letter he mentioned his own: Faust the alchemist and wizard. Jung did not mean cobbling together a mythic-feeling story; he thought we were born into a particular myth which we could then elaborate, as he did with Faust. I teach personal myth work to graduate and undergrad students and in workshops. It also shows up in my novel Soulmapper.
Applied folklore resources:
- Chalquist, C. “What Is Myth” at the International Society of Mythology.
- Chalquist, C. Myths Among Us: When Timeless Tales Return to Life.
- Chalquist, C. Storied Lives: Discovering and Deepening Our Personal Myth.
- “What Is Your Personal Myth?” (audio).